Last week, North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Jim Long issued a news release urging consumers holding long term care insurance policies issued by two subsidiaries of Conseco Inc. (“Conseco”) to be aware of a multi-state settlement (the “Settlement”) that could result in adjustments made to past claims.  Conseco agreed to a $2.3 million fine, along with an additional $30 million for claims-handling improvements and restitution. 

…
Read More North Carolina Issues News Release Regarding Conseco’s Multi-State Settlement Regarding Long Term Care Insurance Claims

On 10 June 2008, the CEA issued a press release stating that it believed that failure to adopt a risk-based approach to the calculation of the MCR would perpetuate the disadvantages of the current regulatory system, Solvency I. Michaela Koller, director general of the CEA, said that, “Approaches to calculating the MCR that are not consistent with the overall system could jeopardise the effectiveness of the whole Solvency II regime” and called for the MCR to be linked to the solvency capital (SCR) requirement so that both reflect the true risk profile of the insurer. The CEA suggested that the MCR should be calculated as a percentage of the SCR. 

…
Read More EU: Solvency II – Comité Européen des Assurances (CEA) Calls for Risk-Sensitive Approach to the Calculation of the Minimum Capital Requirement (MCR)

The insurance regulators in New York and Germany have recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which establishes a formal basis for greater co-ordination between the two jurisdictions. 

…
Read More EU: New York and German Insurance Regulators Agree on Closer Co-operation

In April we reported on the UK Treasury’s publication of a summary of responses to its consultation on certain changes to rules relating to insurance portfolio transfers (known as Part VII transfers) (see the post here). 

…
Read More UK: Update on Changes to the Insurance Business Transfer Regime

In addition to its core principles and rules, which require insurers to treat their customers fairly, the FSA has powers under the UK’s Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (Regulations) to challenge firms that use unfair terms in their standard consumer contracts and to require firms to change those terms where necessary. 

…
Read More UK: The FSA Publishes Two Reports relating to the Use of Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts

On June 2, 2008, Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell signed S.B. 281 into law making Connecticut the latest state to permit the formation of captive insurance companies.  S.B. 281 is very similar to the captive insurer statutes of Vermont, currently the largest U.S. domicile for captive insurance companies. 

…
Read More Connecticut Adopts Captive Legislation

Today is the one-year anniversary of the launch of InsureReinsure.com and we mark the occasion by adding an additional feature for our readers. Beginning today, on the left-hand side of your screen, you will see a new link allowing you to “subscribe” to InsureReinsure.com to receive emails each workday morning with links to the prior day’s posts. 

…
Read More InsureReinsure.com Turns One, Launches Subscription Feature

Markel International Insurance Co Ltd v Surety Guarantee Consultants Ltd & others; (1) QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd (2) Amalfi Underwriting Ltd v Surety Guarantee Consultants Ltd & others [2008] EWHC 1135 (Comm) concerned a joint trial of two separate but similar cases brought by each of Markel and QBE, together with Amalfi, in which they alleged that the Defendants had defrauded them in connection with the writing of surety bonds between January 2005 and 2006. 

…
Read More UK: Markel International, QBE and Amalfi Victorious in Fraud Cases in English High Court

A proposal to centralize the filing and storage of annual market conduct reports has been approved by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (the “NAIC”) Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs (D) Committee, and is headed to the Executive Committee for consideration. …
Read More NAIC Considers Proposal to Centralize Insurance Market Conduct Reporting

On June 2, 2008, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (the “NAIC”) issued a release announcing adoption of a model bulletin (the “Bulletin”) and Consumer Alert (the “Alert”) to help protect seniors from certain abusive sales practices. 

…
Read More NAIC Adopts a Model Bulletin and Consumer Alert Regarding the use of Senior Designations